


Only Love (Can Bring the Rain)

by soft_october



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Aziraphale is a prince, Crowley is a gardener, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff and Humor, Growing Up Together, Light Angst, M/M, Romantic Comedy, gardening tournaments, intrustive narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 18:38:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20821976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soft_october/pseuds/soft_october
Summary: There were all these little hopes and musings Crowley buried so deep in his heart it ached to bring them out into the light to catalogue their faults and flaws, and each time Aziraphale sought him out, or asked his opinion on some weighty manner that was hanging on him, or even just smiled, those little wishings grew bigger and bigger, pressing in on him until he felt as if he was being crushed.“Princes do not fall in love with gardener boys,” he told himself one night, staring into the shard of looking glass he kept on a shelf, hoping it would help, hoping that hearing it out loud would make him believe it, would help him put all these ridiculous notions behind him.It didn't work.Crowley and Aziraphale, the gardener's boy and the prince, meet as children and develop an unlikely friendship.By the time they're twenty, everything has changed.





	Only Love (Can Bring the Rain)

**Author's Note:**

> Saw this prompt on Tumblr and proceeded to try and write a quick little oneshot that rapidly bloomed into a 19k word novella. There's fairy tale elements here, but no magic, just determination and spitting into the face of fate.

Whenever a story like this is told, whether acted out to a child at bedtime (making sure to do all the voices properly), announced to smiling faces at a wedding, or whispered to a lover in the dark, there’s always a moment, usually the first one, where the happy couple knows they were meant for each other. They look deep into each other’s eyes after just having crossed a crowded ballroom and there is a moment of recognition. _ Oh_, one or both might think. _ It’s you. _Or perhaps there is a stilted, flowery conversation in which one compares his lips to pilgrims wishing to worship at the altar of the others’. This type of story would even tolerate one demanding the other bring them one of those lovely little pink drinks being passed around, earning themselves a gallant bow and an “as you wish.” 

There’s none of that in this story. 

No fireworks accompanied Crowley’s first sight of Aziraphale, no hitched breath, no faltering of his step. His heart didn’t even have the common decency to stutter in his chest. No, the only thing Crowley felt as he stared at the boy with the blue eyes hidden among the azaleas was a vague sense of annoyance that this well dressed little fop had crushed his lilies and it was going to be a terrific effort to get them right again before he missed the best part of supper. 

Now to be fair to Crowley, he didn’t know at the time that this boy (who was no more than a year younger than he, but ten-year olds have a very inflated sense of the difference between one digit and two), with tears still rolling down his round cheeks, grass stains on his white trousers, leaves and twigs all stuck in his golden curls, was the prince, but I’d wager even if he had known this boy was Aziraphale, was the youngest son of the Queen and half-brother to the current prince regent, this story would have come out just the same. You see, some stories can’t escape their own endings, no matter how many times they’re retold, or reworked, and the kind of story you’re about to hear is one of them. 

There were several ways Crowley could have dealt with who he only knew was a small and very sad boy cowering in the shadow of his azaleas. (They were not _ his _ azaleas, the head gardener was fond of reminding him with a hiss and a pinched ear. They were the Queen’s azaleas, and he would do well to remember that. But Crowley could think or say anything he liked when the head gardener wasn’t around, and the head gardener was at home with a terrible illness brought about by something in last night’s bottle of scotch, and today the flowers were all Crowley’s.) He could have ignored him and made pointed remarks about the trampled lilies, hoping the boy would take the hint and shove off. That’s what he had been instructed to do, anyway, but anyone would had worked beside Crowley for more than five minutes would tell you that the boy had a way of wriggling out of anything he was instructed to do. He also could have traipsed off to another part of the garden he was responsible for and tended to that until the little noble (nobling? noblette? Crowley would sort out the diminutive later) had finished his cry over whatever it was such children cry about and departed so Crowley could clean up his mess. That was right out because it looked like this would be a very long cry _ indeed,_ and Crowley wasn’t about to miss a second of sleep because someone decided to serve the wrong type of sugar with the boy’s tea, or whatever it was he was so upset about. 

The third option - well, see for yourself. 

“You kicked down all the lilies,” said Crowley, after a minute or so. He dug around in his pocket for the scruffy handkerchief he knew was there, and when he found his prize and held it out, he saw the dirt under his fingernails, the frayed edges of the cloth. This was stupid. The boy wouldn’t even reach out his hand for it, wouldn’t dare deign to brush against short nails and calloused skin - 

The handkerchief vanished into the boy’s grasp and was immediately put to use wiping away a fresh set of tears. 

“Better than a sleeve, at any rate,” Crowley drawled, covering for his surprise in a way he thought was very smart. 

“I’m sorry - I’m sorry about your… about those,” the boy babbled, indicating the lilies with one chubby finger, and now Crowley almost felt sorry for him, but not quite. “I just - I just needed somewhere to hide.” His gaze flicked away from Crowley’s face, down to the ground, and the gardener's boy could have groaned with irritation at himself as he allowed the last of his frustration to slip away, be replaced with something like pity. 

“Look, don't worry about the lilies, it’s not the end of the world. Just be a little more careful next time you want to hide in the azalea bush.” 

“This isn’t a bush,” the boy said emphatically, suppressing another sob. “It’s a flower. See all the flowers?” He pointed to the pink blossoms, like Crowley had the observational skills of a common mosquito, like was an idiot. “My tutor says -”

“Your tutor is wrong,” Crowley replied, sharp. “It’s a bush. These lilies,” here he indicated the downtrodden stems, the bruised leaves, “these are flowers.” The boy blinked at him, and in the interest of avoiding that strange gaze Crowley knelt down beside the plants, rearranging the soil at their roots, pulling a few fine stakes out of the pack on his hip and set about binding the stems, and it wasn’t long at all before the boy fell beside him, further staining those pristine and likely expensive trousers. 

“Can I help?” he asked, in a very small voice which indicated exactly what the petitioner expected the answer to be. 

“Sure,” said Crowley, absently, handing him another thin bit of wood and some string, showing him how to tie the stems tight but not too tightly, just enough to remind them the right way to stand up. The little noble did a passable job by his third try, and Crowley was about to ask him who he was when a screech of shock echoed from across the courtyard, followed by - 

“_Prince Aziraphale!_ _Your highness! What are you doing kneeling in the dirt?”_

Aziraphale? _ The prince, Aziraphale?! _The little prince was the lordling covered in dirt next to him, who, up until the moment he had been found out, was beside himself with happiness to see a lily he tied down standing up again, straight and tall. The scream came a second time, and Crowley turned to see a woman he recognized too late as Aziraphale’s tutor hurtling towards them at speeds heretofore thought impossible by human standards. There was no more time to hesitate, (he’d had enough boxed ears and telling offs this week, thanks all the same) and Crowley was packing up his gardener’s tools and getting ready to sprint away as fast as he could when the prince (the prince!) caught his sleeve. 

“Thank you,” he said, with a small and solemn smile, before rising to his feet to meet his tutor, who had moved on from various iterations of his screamed name and had now cleanly vaulted into hysterics about the state of his clothes. 

Crowley only hoped he could run fast enough that she wouldn’t be able to tell which of the gardening boys needed to be thrown out of the palace’s service, and it wasn’t until he had made it to the sheds he realized his handkerchief, that dirty scrap of cloth Aziraphale used to wipe his eyes and dry his hands, had been stolen by the prince. 

* * *

The prince was not upon the grounds the next day, nor the one after that. The head gardener made no mention of his immediate dismissal, Cook snuck him an extra pastry (so skinny! I won't have anyone thinking we skimp on meals here!) and Crowley was just about to settle into the comfort you get when you're settling back into your usual routine and the interesting thing that happened was one time only and it will never happen again, ever, when Aziraphale reappeared. He was sitting on the low stone wall near the same azalea bush Crowley found him under three days ago, clutching a basket covered by a patterned cloth Crowley noted was not his missing handkerchief, but a checkered thing with tassels on the edges and embroidery in the corners. 

“I brought you scones!” the prince chirped happily upon seeing him, as if that was supposed to explain everything. “Cook always makes scones for me on Tuesdays, only there were so many today it felt silly not to share. Will you have some? There's cinnamon and cream and raspberry!” Aziraphale proffered the basket, and Crowley hesitated to take it, numbly, frantically rummaging through anything he'd been told about interacting with the nobility to form the proper response. Showing a crying boy how to set a stake was one thing, but sharing picnics with the prince was quite another, and Crowley was going to tell him all about it in a minute, just as soon as his tongue scrambled out from under the rubble of his shock. 

“This is right outside my classroom, you know,” Aziraphale continued. “After she caught me the other day my tutor tried to argue that the azaleas were flowers, and I made her look it up in one of the botany books in the library.” A delighted, almost devilish smile crept over his face at the memory. “She hates being wrong even more than she hates trying to get me to attend my brother’s meetings, so it’s only proper I thank you for that as well.”

“Sure,” Crowley began, and hurried to add “your highness,” at the end. Though he'd managed to avoid any sort of reprimand over the last incident, luck was a fickle thing, and Crowley didn’t want it getting around he failed to show proper decorum. (Again.) Aziraphale made a face at the title, perhaps Crowley hadn’t said it quite right (was it his low born accent? Could his impoverished tongue not afford to use those sorts of words?), but the prince shook his head and offered the basket again. Crowley took it this time, still struggling over how to respond. A simple thank you seemed, well, too simple, and he didn't know any of the elaborate phrases he often heard when he brushed against a garden party or a mounted hunting trio as he moved about the grounds. 

“Oh, please don’t say whatever it is you’re about to say,” begged Aziraphale, interrupting the whole process. “Those other children they bring to play with me always make that face right before a big speech I can’t understand that their parents wrote for them and I hate it.” He scowled so much Crowley couldn’t help but chuckle. 

“So long as that tutor of yours stays far away from me, I’ll talk to you however you like,” agreed Crowley, and Aziraphale smiled a very un-princely smile, in that it was open and honest and closer to what Crowley saw in the servants quarters than the thin lipped attempts he saw on the faces of those nobles taking fancy turns about the impeccably manicured lawn. 

“Thank you,” said Aziraphale, and then right after, with no hesitation, “How do you get these plants to look like this?” He pointed to the large blooms. “They’re bigger and nicer than any of the others around the palace. My tutor says it has something to do with the air, but I’m not sure I trust her about plants anymore.” 

“It's not the air, it has nothing to _ do _ with the air!" Why was this woman teaching the prince if she didn't even know how _ plants grew_. Any country peasant knew more than her! "They're like that because I’m the best,” Crowley said with a shrug. “This is my patch to tend, and so they look the best.”

“If you’re the best how come you’re not in charge?”

“If your tutor doesn’t know the difference between a flower and a bush why is she teaching you?” Aziraphale opened his mouth to answer and then closed it again. But Crowley had worked it out for himself in the moments between, and he was furious with the answer. 

“She’s the daughter of someone or another the prince regent is trying to curry favor with. Same as the head gardener! He wouldn’t know a Gerber daisy from an oxeye, but he’s still in charge.” (Crowley left out the part where he was ten years old and the head gardener was fifty, because he felt he was quite grown enough already, and if he was the superior gardener, the job should be his.) “It’s all politics.” Aziraphale nodded, sagely. 

“Oh. That makes sense. My brother says he does politics all day and I have to learn politics too.” He wrinkled his nose. “It’s stupid and boring.”

“Is that why you were crying the other day?”

“No! I wouldn’t cry over something like that. I have to do boring stuff all the time”

“So why were you crying?” Crowley asked. 

“It doesn’t matter.” Aziraphale shifted where he sat on the wall, and his eyes flicked away. 

“Seemed like it mattered, at the time." Crowley knew he probably shouldn't press (the prince could have him out on his ear for impertinence, like what happened to the prince regent's valet when he suggested perhaps his highness would prefer a cream cravat instead of lavender) but Aziraphale seemed more like the type that would apologize to _ him _, and besides. Crowley was curious. 

Aziraphale pursed his lips, considering. 

“My brother says he’s started to go through marriage contracts for me," he admitted at last, expecting a softening around the eyes, a sad but understanding nod, would even have accepted a slow shake of the head. He was not expecting the bewildered tilt to the side Crowley’s head experienced, nor the question after. 

“What’s a marriage contract?” 

Aziraphale blinked at the boy in front of him, and his hand almost slipped on the stones. Not know what a marriage contract is! Why, the other children brought to him for what was called companionship but Aziraphale was old enough to know was vying to be his favorite, all of them knew what a marriage contract was! 

“Don’t you know?” Aziraphale asked, before he could stop himself. He saw at once it was the wrong thing to say, saw how a curtain drew across Crowley’s face. 

“Of course I do,” he said, gruffly. “I was - I was just making sure that you knew. Silly thing to - ah - to cry about.” A pause. “Right?” Though he was raised a prince, with airs and graces and every person in the palace at his disposal, Aziraphale was a kind child. More than that, he did not want to upset the only person who had treated him normally in ages, and decided to explain in a way that was more a confession and less a lecture. 

“People from practically all over the world send my brother these stupid letters and they’re all the same. Someone or other wants to marry me and will give my brother tons of land or trade agreements or settle old disputes in exchange and I don’t get _ anything_.” His voice broke on the word, and Crowley didn't like the sound of it. 

“It looks like you’ll get married?” said Crowley, with a hopeful lilt. But Aziraphale’s expression made him instantly reconsider. “Although I’m not sure you want that either,” he finished quickly. 

“Well of course I want to get married,” Aziraphale replied. Crowley felt he was rapidly losing the conversation. 

“Then why are you so upset?”

“I don’t want to get married in some stupid exchange!” Aziraphale exploded. “It’s not fair! It’s not like in the stories! Where the beautiful princess befriends the dragon and they rescue the handsome prince from his evil stepfather! It’s - it’s ugly and mean and I don’t want any part of it!” Aziraphale looked like he was about to cry again, and Crowley had no other handkerchief to give for the cause. With a hand that proudly did not tremble, Crowley patted the prince on the shoulder, offering the only comfort he himself could ever remember receiving. 

“He can’t make me,” Aziraphale said, stubbornly, after a bit. “The law says. My tutor made sure I knew that at least, even if Gabriel didn’t. He can’t choose who it is. I’m the one who gets to pick. But what if I pick the wrong one? Or I meet them and I don’t want them anymore?” He looked to Crowley, as if he, the uneducated, orphaned gardener’s boy, had any answer for him. 

Well, he did, at that. 

“Then don’t pick any of them,” said Crowley, as if it were common sense. “You don’t have to marry anyone you don’t want, like you said. Just tell him he can forget the whole thing.”

“Gabriel makes it very difficult to say no, sometimes.” This was said in a voice so small Crowley felt an unexpected urge to protect the little prince, to hide him away where the regent could not find him.

“Well, maybe you could find an evil stepfather? He could lock you in a tower until a beautiful princess shows up to rescue you?”

“I’d rather a prince.”

“Fine then, till a beautiful prince comes to rescue you. Either way, he has to fall in love with you then, and you can pick him to marry.” Crowley was becoming annoyed by this conversation, though he had no idea why. “Or, I don’t know, run away?” That was a better suggestion, and he was very proud of himself for coming up with it. But Aziraphale only shook his head.

“I wouldn’t know where to run too,” he said, miserably. 

“Oh there’s lots of places to run!" Crowley rocked back and forth on his heels in excitement. He had found so many interesting places around the grounds in the few years he had been here, but with no one to show them too. "There’s this little cave by the river, and this big hollow tree by the carriage road that I found one time. Oh, oh, and the old palace ruins next to the flower field, that’s _ full _ of fun little places to hide! Then there’s the town beyond the walls, and there’s the whole world beyond that!” Aziraphale thought about it, longingly, especially when Crowley mentioned the palace ruins (he had always wanted to visit and been told he was not to go there under any circumstances because it was far too dangerous) and then shook his head. 

“I don’t know how to get there,” he said, even more downcast than before. “And even if I did know, I wouldn’t be allowed.” 

“I’ll come with you,” said Crowley, at once. He was bound to serve the palace, after all, and what better way to serve the palace than helping the prince himself. 

“My brother will say -” Aziraphale began and then, realizing he didn’t care what his brother would say, grinned instead. “Okay. One day. We’ll run away. But not today,” he added, as an afterthought. Cook had promised pear tarts for dessert, after all. 

“Not today,” Crowley agreed, and in the interest of moving on from the subject entirely, Crowley knelt down and began to show him how the lilies were already standing on their own, and what they needed to keep growing strong. 

* * *

Their second interaction having gone so well, Aziraphale saw no reason why he should discontinue meeting with Crowley. Anytime he could escape from his princely obligations (and as the youngest son there were ample opportunities to do so) he would steal out onto the lawns or into the courtyards, looking for that dark hair, the worn pack in which well-maintained tools were carried, the crooked smile. Crowley was happy to oblige (although sometimes he would act very put upon indeed, but he was now in the habit of finishing his work earlier, that he might sneak off with none the wiser) and showed him all the secret little places, even the ruins of the old palace, moss covered and grim, deep within the palace forest. 

Servants would shake their heads and smile and say it was such an unlikely little friendship because they did not remember what it was like being a lonely child. They did not remember long days surrounded by adults who didn’t listen to what you had to say no matter how important it was, who just did not see the beauty in twenty caterpillars of all different colors, who all said things like 'when you're older," and "you wouldn't understand," and "no," and "no," and "no." They did not remember what it was like never having a single soul with whom you could confide, or run about to fun places, or daydream with on lazy summer afternoons. 

Gabriel did not know (or if he did know he did not care at all) that the little prince met with one of the gardening staff for the occasional picnic, and sometimes a traipse through the copse of trees on the grounds. He was very busy with the duties of running a kingdom, and did not consider himself his brother’s keeper. That’s what servants were for, after all, and he trusted the palace staff to intercede on his behalf were anything untoward happening under its roof. His Spymaster, Michael, was on hand to inform him of whatever the palace staff did not and she had raised no such concerns. Aziraphale was - well, if you asked the prince regent directly, Gabriel would have admitted that his brother was “a little darling” in the sort of way which said he was not really, and in his private moments Gabriel hardly thought upon him at all. 

But he could not be forgotten forever, and in July Aziraphale was obliged to go on a diplomatic journey to a neighboring kingdom with his brother. The separation from his new friend loomed large in his mind the afternoon before his departure, and though he tried to distract himself through games and honeycomb treats, a melancholy insisted on draping itself about him. 

“What’s wrong?” Crowley asked him, after the prince failed to respond the third time he asked him what the weird cloud hanging over the clocktower resembled. 

“I will miss you,” Aziraphale said simply. “I will try and write to you. Will you promise to write me back?” The prince was a bit startled when Crowley didn’t share his look of enthusiasm. 

"Gabriel won't let you," Crowley tried to protest. “Princes aren’t in the habit of writing to gardener’s boys, he’ll make a scene of it.”

"Don't be silly, he doesn't know or mind who I want to write to. We can penpals! I’ll tell you all the little things I do and you can tell me about all the adventures you’re having and then we can have them together when I get back!" The smile was too much for Crowley to bear, and he turned his face back towards the sky. 

"Yeah, sure, okay." Crowley mumbled. The prince didn’t care for that tone at all. 

"You will write back, right?" Aziraphale pressed. 

"I - I - I'll try but it's very busy around here especially in August and -" Crowley still wouldn’t look at him. 

“If you don’t want to just say so!” Aziraphale exclaimed, stamping his foot. “I know I’m - I know my life is boring compared to yours but you don’t have to - you don’t have to treat me like - like -”

“It’s not that!” Crowley replied, frantic. “I want to write you back - it’s just… it’s…” There was fear in Crowley’s face, and suddenly Aziraphale understood perfectly. 

"You don't know how to write." 

It wasn't a question, and Crowley's cheeks burned.

"Maybe I just don't want to write to a spoiled little prince," Crowley growled in embarrassment. "Maybe some of us have work to do." He rocketed off the ground and shoved his hands in his pockets, heading back towards the groundskeeper cottages, ignoring the prince’s repeated calls after him. Fine. Fine. He didn't know how to write. He didn’t know how to read. He was stupid, just like all the adults around him kept saying but it didn’t _ matter _ because he was better at plants then the whole lot of them put together. He didn’t need letters, or words to make the roses bloom, or to whisper life into empty earth. He didn’t need words to be the _ best _ at what he did.

Although… 

He froze. Aziraphale, who would be leaving in the morning, bookish, perfect penmanship Aziraphale, wouldn’t want anything to do with him after this. He needed words for one thing, and he knew he had already lost it. Aziraphale would come back home after spending his months away with wealthy children with a whole platoon of teachers who could discuss books and writing and whatever else it was little lordlings talked about, and he would forget all about his friend, the gardener’s boy.

If the thin little pillow on his cot caught a few extra tears than it was used to, well, that was Crowley’s business and no one else's.

Crowley slept even later than usual the next morning, to ensure he would catch no pitying glimpse of the little prince as he rode out of the palace in his brother’s carriage, and picked sullenly at his breakfast, wishing that he could not recall an afternoon with Aziraphale and a basket of fresh, warm scones. He similarly dragged his feet through his morning duties (for what reason did he have to rush now?) and the sun slipped past its zenith in the sky before Crowley at last made it to the garden underneath Aziraphale’s classroom windows. Here, he was certain, he would waste away with loneliness, but it didn’t matter, not really, he was a tough kid, he could take the sting, he was - 

He was stunned to see Aziraphale sitting there, barefoot on a blanket, a veritable feast of fruit and bread and cheeses spread out before him. 

“Crowley!” he waved excitedly as the gardening boy approached, as if yesterday was a nothing more than a dream he had the night before, and they hadn’t fought at all. “Come and sit! Have a grape with me! I tried to wait for you but you took so long and everything looked so good!” Crowley would not have expected Aziraphale to wait more than thirty seconds after laying out his lunch before tucking into such a tasty looking spread, but he took the offered fruit and listened to Aziraphale babble on about where the grapes had come from, how much better they were than last year, and other little nuances he must have heard at some lecture or another until Crowley felt that he had somewhat mastered his confusion. 

“Aziraphale,” he ventured during a pause between minute details about the role cultural diffusion had played in the movement of grapes through the ages (to be sure it was a sanitized, children’s version that left out all the war and imperialism) “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be on your way to -” 

“Oh, that,” Aziraphale waved his hand, concerned more that his treatise on grapes had been interrupted than of Crowley’s bewilderment, “I didn’t want to go anyway, and my brother told me to stay home.”

“Really?” Crowley was exceptionally doubtful, as the prince regent didn’t seem like the type of man who would listen to the whims of a nine-year old and obey. 

“The trick is to make it seem like a punishment,” Aziraphale said, very matter-of-factly, “And he was quite eager to punish me after I threw his favorite set of quills down the well.” 

“You did what?” 

“He thought I wanted to go because he wants me to go,” Aziraphale continued with a pout. “But he was responding to one of the proposals for me and wanted me to sign it, and I yelled and grabbed his writing box and ran into the courtyard before he could catch me. He was so angry!” Aziraphale laughed. “So he was trying not to make a scene and I started begging him to still let me come on the trip and he told me that I had to stay here and think about what I’ve done.” He popped another grape into his mouth, to punctuate the denouement of his brilliant plan. “Anyway,” his voice was muddled by the fruit, but Crowley still thought he caught less notes of that bravado than before, “I brought some stuff for you. Only if you want.” 

He brought out a drawing slate, and a thin book from the basket beside him, and placed them next to Crowley, who was speechless. He knew what such things were for: they were tools he had seen at work through Aziraphale’s classroom window as he tended the flower beds. But he couldn’t use them he wasn’t, he didn’t - 

“I mean, it’s only if you want to learn, of course,” Aziraphale was starting to babble, concerned that Crowley was gaping at his old drawing slate like a particularly surprised fish. “We don’t have to, we can - I mean it really isn’t fair that I can’t just send you messages in my own voice, that would be so much easier -”

“Okay,” said Crowley, if only because he wanted to see Aziraphale smile again, didn’t like this nervous side of him, or that he had been the cause of it. “We can try, I mean.” 

Remember that stutter I mentioned a while ago? The one a heart is supposed to make when one half of that old true love equation finds the other? Well, there, in the garden, with the sun shining behind Aziraphale’s curls, with the little prince’s smile so wide like Crowley was the one doing _ him _ the favor, like he, the prince, was grateful for an illiterate orphan saved from poverty by luck and more than a little cleverness, surrounded by all the little things he loved to eat, it happened. Crowley’s little heart did an odd, flippity thing, and it had never happened before (and it would be quite some time before it ever did again). Crowley chalked it up to indigestion from his hurried breakfast, and didn’t think about it for the rest of the afternoon. 

Funny, how often love is mistaken for indigestion. 

* * *

Perhaps it was that the oppressive weight of the prince regent had been lifted off the palace, or the string of beautiful days that followed, but the entire palace staff seemed to be in light spirits, and there was a general feeling of unhurried bliss that spread like a really satisfying yawn. Aziraphale met with Crowley every day for the next few weeks, whether the gardener was tending the beds, trimming the grass, or tending to the tools in the gardening shed. (Aziraphale did not necessarily have the time according to his tutor’s schedule, but when Crowley explained that she had never consulted him on it before she made it, Aziraphale began to consider the whole thing rather presumptuous.) The prince always brought along a new little lesson he had devised, a new thin little book he would make Crowley take home, “to practice with!” the prince would say. 

Crowley would grumble about it, but the moment the prince departed for the evening, Crowley would abandon whatever else he was doing to try and suss out more letters, which were slowly forming words. As the weeks wore on, Crowley started to realize that a great many people (the matron at the orphanage, the head gardener, the under-gardener, the maids in the scullery) were very much mistaken in their previous assessment of him, which usually amounted to various synonyms for ‘stupid.’ (Imbecilic was Crowley’s favorite, for the way it tripped off the tongue.) At least, they were wrong if Aziraphale’s endless string of enthusiastic praise for how quickly he was learning were anything to go by, or how the mystical black symbols in the books started to take on the appearance of meaning. 

He would practice writing his name over and over again in the dirt as he worked, proudly drawing C-R-O-W-L-E-Y in each of the beds. Let the head gardener tell him the flowers weren’t his now! There was his own name, right there, for anyone to see. 

Aziraphale was eventually called away from the palace in the middle of autumn, as both of them knew he inevitably must be. The little prince couldn’t be kept at home forever, and this time Crowley did not hesitate to say that yes, of course he would write, although when the first letter arrived he regretted his words. This letter was very long, with lots of big words he didn't recognize. It languished under his cot, where the words could stay hidden, and remained there until the second letter arrived. This, thankfully, was written in those same short phrases as the little books he kept practicing in, written with much bigger letters, and then it was easy for Crowley to pick up a pencil and scratch out his reply on the parchment Aziraphale gave him. 

He sent it off, and waited each day by the road for the next. 

* * *

Seven years passed in contented fashion, with none to come between the friendship save for the increasing load of Aziraphale’s princely duties and the classes which must accompany them. The tutor (who didn’t know anything except how to please and look pretty, according to Crowley) was sent away when Aziraphale was ten years old, to be replaced by an entire cabal of instructors. Riding, fencing, jousting, archery, speech, languages, history, these came easily to the prince, who was as apt with a sword as he was with a book, (though his penchant for too many sweets after dinner hid the muscles he developed underneath a comfortable layer of cushion). But there were others, politics, for one, with which he struggled somewhat, and still more, like dancing. It is dreadfully bad form to blacken the name of a prince, and in keeping with tradition, I shall relate no further our dear Aziraphale’s forays into the waltz or the reel. 

I will say that he was a successful prince, who lived in princely accommodations, walked with a princely bearing and possessed a dowry of a princely sum, but by the time of his seventeenth birthday, Aziraphale had rejected three times that many proposals, and princely it may be, his dowry sat, unclaimed. He had refused them all: royal highnesses, noblings, even the son of one obscenely wealthy merchant Gabriel had offered him in desperation. 

"You must pick one of them," Gabriel protested. "It is almost your seventeenth birthday and it would be… an embarrassment, for you to not be betrothed, at the very least." 

Aziraphale, who had been suffering similar conversations since he was nine years old, could no longer burst into tears and flee into the garden to be comforted by a rough but kind-hearted Crowley (though that didn't stop him from wishing it could still be so). 

“I am sorry to have displeased you, brother,” he said instead, in a soft, miserable voice. 

“I’m worried about you,” Gabriel continued, as if Aziraphale had not said anything at all. “I’ve always complimented your appetite for reading but now I fear you’ve been buried in those books of yours so long it’s given you certain… notions, about what marriage should be. There’s none of this, this love at first sight business! Sometimes there’s no love there at all!” Gabriel seemed disgusted by the very pronunciation of the word "love," and pressed on. "You must understand that everything in those books is fiction. Marriage is just an agreement, like - well, like that little negotiation you worked out last year with the Vicomte. Just two parties coming to terms that are amenable to both sides, with respect and admiration between them." 

Aziraphale wanted very much to point out that he wasn’t expected to hop in bed with the Vicomte after they had affixed their signatures to a treaty outlining an open border between the two kingdoms, but was certain it would result in him having to stay even longer within the stifling confines of his brother’s study. His discomfort must have shown in his face, because instead of dismissing him, as he usually did by this time in their typical routine, Gabriel actually smiled. It was not pleasant. 

“I can see you still have your doubts, and why shouldn’t you! I’ve been throwing these people at you for, what, eight years now? And you’ve hardly met any of them! You’re young, you’re… sensitive, I understand. But…" (here Gabriel paused for dramatic effect and that was an even worse sign) "I’m happy to announce that’s all about to change.” 

Now, if someone like Gabriel announces that everything is about to change, it’s safe to assume that the changes will be some combination of unwanted, unpleasant, or awkward for everyone involved, and to Aziraphale’s horror, Gabriel’s plan was all three. 

“You cannot be serious,” he blurted before Gabriel had even finished telling him the news. 

“Of course I’m serious! A ball is just the thing! It’ll be your debut, and we’ll invite everyone whose sent a proposal.” He thought for a moment. “Well, anyone we haven’t already written a rejection too, anyway. This is the kind of thing that goes down in history, Aziraphale, the kind of thing you read about in all those books of yours! You’ll see a nice, eligible suitor from a good family with a large tract of land or suitable influence from across the room and then you’ll realize all this dithering and coquetry has been over nothing.” 

So, Aziraphale barely heard any of that, and who could blame him? A ball! _ A ball in his honor! _ A ball surrounded by hundreds of guests clamouring for his attention, for his hand in a dance, for a moment’s conversation, all eyes on him as he swayed some dilettante who knew nothing about him beyond his name and title across the ballroom in a sad facsimile of what someone who had only heard dancing described in books might think it looked like. And for what? Their title beside his? A new addition in the records of nobility? The money, the power? A ball would be -

“A disaster,” Aziraphale choked out when he found his voice again. “This is - this isn’t -”

“Oh, nonsense,” said Gabriel, waving his arm as if waving away Aziraphale’s doubts. “And anyway _ I’ve _ already made up my mind and _ you _ should get fitted for a new set of formalwear.” This, finally, was his brother bidding him goodbye, and though Aziraphale pressed his lips together, he couldn’t think of a single argument that the prince regent would not see as the protests of a recalcitrant teenager, and there was no use standing against him.

So he went outside to find someone who _ would _ listen to him.

Crowley was in his usual place this time of day, scowling at the new rose arbour the head gardener had insisted on setting up and then abandoned utterly, leaving his most talented subordinate to pick up his slack. Crowley wasn’t happy about the extra work, and was quite content to spend as much of his time as possible loafing about the grounds, but the arbour led from the courtyard to a charming little gazebo in which Gabriel (and whichever visiting dignitary was with him) was fond of taking tea. Such a public display of anything less than perfection was more than Crowley could stand, and so, every afternoon was spent wrangling the roses up and over the latticework, threatening them until buds and blooms burst forth, and brutally pruning and tying back any stems that had gotten fancy ideas during the night. 

His talents hadn’t gone unnoticed, in the decade he had been toiling away on the palace grounds. It was well known that the head gardener was a bit of a drunk, and until very recently (and except in certain areas where the youngest member of the gardening staff was responsible) the grounds had reflected this. But now, as Crowley had grown and taken the elders on the staff to task, the gardens and courtyards and grounds were in fine form. (The head gardener might try to take the credit, and he was granted a polite smile for his efforts, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was all thanks to Crowley.) Indeed, several among the nobility had already requested that Gabriel release him from service to the palace, allow him to take a job on their own estates, somewhere he didn’t have to cover for the mistakes of others, where he could have a bigger cottage, a better salary. The prince regent was happy to indulge these offers, and would bring Crowley before him so that the request might be made in person. (He could have refused them without Crowley's input, but Gabriel got a heady thrill from watching his prize gardener shake his head and the applicant's face fall.) 

“Sounds like a lot of work, your highness.” Aziraphale, who often was present for these moments, could hear the disdain that Crowley masked as reverence, and had to keep himself from smiling. “Thanks all the same.” Then he would return to his work, and Aziraphale would find him later, and they would laugh about the narrow escape, as if a better job in another place was a dire fate indeed. 

But Crowley was not only becoming popular for his green thumb and eye for color. He was also receiving attention of a very different kind, and although his reaction to it was much the same, Aziraphale could not find a single thread of humor in it. On the contrary, the prince was doing his best to ignore it completely, tried in vain not to notice the steady stream of longing glances cast towards Crowley from all sorts. But, far as he could tell, Crowley hadn’t noticed much of it either. And why should they not gaze at him so? Aziraphale would argue with himself. The prince was not… he was _ aware _ of the gardener's charms. Crowley had grown tall and lean, whipcord strong from long years of laboring in the gardens, he had eyes that shone with flecks of gold when the light caught them just so, and when he permitted his dark hair to grow long it fell around his face in loose curls until it was tied back up and away. He was _ handsome _, Aziraphale could admit, and he was good for a laugh and a sympathetic ear. (A "catch," wasn't that what he heard from one of the giggly young things he noticed watching Crowley just the other week?) But whenever he was asked to come for tea in a coquettish young maid’s private room, or asked if he might not care for a trip into town by a handsome messenger boy, Crowley would shrug and shake his head and return to his plants, with a “thanks all the same" tossed over his shoulder for their trouble.

What Aziraphale absolutely could not ignore (as much as he would like to) were his own reactions to both of these situations, a sort of tension that would build up in his chest, piling on heavier and heavier, pressing in on him until he felt like he couldn't breathe - only to be snapped like a thread the moment Crowley shook his head to decline. Then warmth and relief would bloom in the hollow left behind, and they would be accompanied by an unbidden smile he could not shake.

He didn’t know why such things happened, the same way he couldn’t catalogue the stab of joy he felt as he rounded the corner to see Crowley murmuring to the roses on the arbour. 

“The Baroness d’Guerre is coming to tea tomorrow,” Crowley growled at a trembling bud. “It would be rather terrible for you if those leaf spots came back, wouldn’t it?” The petals shivered. “Hello, Angel,” he said, without looking up. Time, that thief, had stolen much of their shared hours, but it had not altered their informal intimacy, nor the nickname Crowley had given him on his thirteenth birthday. 

Crowley had taken him to the ruins of the old palace, where they used to spend much of their time as children. 

"I have something for you," he said, and handed the prince a hastily wrapped gift. "It's not much but-" 

It was a wooden duck Crowley had whittled himself, evidenced by its lopsided beak and a strange tail. 

"It's like the ducks by the pond you're so fond of feeding," Crowley had continued, with a reddening face. "And if you don't like it - if it's stupid I'll just take it back and -"

"No," the prince said. "No, I love it." 

And Crowley looked at him, with the sun shining through his curls, admiring a poorly carved waterfowl as if Crowley had handed him a bouquet of diamonds, and laughed. 

"You're like an angel," he said before he could stop himself, the words he often used in his private thoughts tramping through in their desire to be heard aloud. But Aziraphale just blushed and smiled, and, even now, almost four years later, the nickname still made Aziraphale's heart feel twisted and strange. 

“I do so love those flowers, Crowley," he said by way of greeting. "I wish you wouldn’t threaten them so cruelly.” 

“Again, they’re a bush, not a flower,” Crowley replied, and mumbled something Aziraphale didn't catch that sounded suspiciously like a condemnation of his earlier schooling. “And anyway, the last time you asked me to be nice to them one of them dropped right beside your brother’s teacup in the middle of negotiations with that - that Baron or Lord or - oh you know the one, smell like old compost-" 

"Duke Hastur?" 

"Duke Hastur!" Crowley snapped. "And I _ will not _ tolerate that kind of insubordination.” He did not add that it would have been acceptable if it dropped right on Gabriel’s head instead, or plunked a thorn straight down into the prince regent's teacup. 

“Whatever you like,” Aziraphale tried to smile, settle into the normal of the moment. “Getting everything all fixed up for -”

“Don’t pretend, angel.” Crowley still wouldn’t meet his eyes, and he sounded so tired. “I can see it in your face. That brother of yours just tell you about the ball?”

“You knew?” Aziraphale felt a small stab of betrayal, how could Crowley know and not - 

“Orders came down just this morning. Everything needs to be ready in a month’s time - a month!” This last was not directed towards Aziraphale at all, but to the rosebuds at his elbow, and Aziraphale's anger retreated. 

“Gabriel going to parade the whole stable in front of you, then?” 

“I wish you wouldn’t say such -”

“But that’s the case, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale chewed his bottom lip. He did not want that to be the case, wanted to make excuses for his brother, whom he was certain was well-meaning, if a bit pig-headed. (He couldn't tell that to Crowley, because Crowley once said that if he were in charge for a day his first order of business would be to have Gabriel dunked in the lake until he learned how to treat Aziraphale like a human with thoughts and feelings and not an "_ asset to the realm._" Crowley had a bad habit of saying things and asking questions that Aziraphale knew he, as the prince, should probably not consider.) 

“Guess you should file an order with your tailor, get all fitted up for a nice new suit? Maybe even a shiny new pair of shoes.” There was a weary sarcasm in his voice that upset Aziraphale all over again. 

“Crowley, can we please not fight about this?” This sort of thing, anger, misunderstandings, miscommunications, they were happening more and more between them and Aziraphale didn’t know what he was doing wrong, how they could go back to how things used to be, (long afternoons in the sunshine, getting caught out in the rain and huddling together for warmth until the storm passed, skipping rocks across the pond and frightening the ducks) or even if they could. 

Crowley sighed. 

“Yeah, I mean, no - whatever I mean. Let’s not fight.” He drew away from the arbour and picked up his tools, beckoning Aziraphale to follow him. 

It was easier to talk within the confines of the palace forest, for while their friendship had been labeled as "cute" in their earlier days, the adolescent prince still being on intimate terms with a member of the staff was difficult to explain to visiting nobility without a raised eyebrow and a lewd comment about Crowley's appearance. Aziraphale had _ quite _ enough of those conversations, thank you very much, and it was only through some combination of grace or luck that Gabriel hadn't yet ordered him to stay away. So, the woods it was, where they might still, on occasion, spread out a blanket and lie back to watch the clouds through the leaves as they drifted lazily through the sky. 

“I’m afraid it’s going to go all wrong,” Aziraphale continued, when they had drawn further into the copse of trees. “All those people, the dancing -”

“All of them pawing at you.” Crowley finished darkly. “I’m sorry, angel. I am.” He shook his head. “Come run away with me?” He grinned at the old joke, and Aziraphale wished there was a way to ensure that his returning smile was not something more resembling a pained grimace. Their shared jest was beginning to feel less and less amusing, it was fraying at the edges, unravelling into a tired snarl of yarn at their feet, and, like so many things between them, Aziraphale didn’t know why. 

It's just as well that he didn't ask Crowley, who could have told him exactly why. Well, at least he could have if Crowley hadn’t spent most of their interactions for the last few years telling himself over and over again (_shut up, don't say that, that was stupid, don't tell him, don't don't don't_) that everything he wanted was quite out of reach, and that he needed to put it all behind him. 

Crowley, you see, was suffering the same affliction as Aziraphale, and had spent many nights staring at thatched roof of his cottage, (an upgrade from the miserable cot in the under-gardener's closet where he'd spent his first years at the palace) detailing the many ways he was setting himself up for failure in excruciating detail. Aziraphale was a prince. Time was taking it's due, and there would be one day, very close now, when it would have robbed them of everything. Each stolen picnic might be their last, for Aziraphale would soon be married off to the highest bidder, sold by his brother like a prized cow all for the good of the kingdom. Then the prince would be taken away from the palace and couldn’t very well demand that his friend the new palace under-gardener accompany them, could he? (_Aziraphale is quite good at getting what he wants, _ a snide voice under his rational one would interrupt. _ And he could bring you anywhere he liked, he would, if you asked him_.) But asking was out of the question, wasn’t it? If he went to whichever manor or palace or estate Aziraphale would be obliged to live in with his shining new spouse, he would have to see the two of them taking turns about the garden, tend to flowers at windows he could see them dining through, laughing together, perhaps even - 

He would not be going with Azirapahle when he wed. 

And yet was that the problem, their eventual separation? Of course not, but it was difficult, even in the darkness of those four white walls, to be honest. There were all these little hopes and musings Crowley buried so deep in his heart it ached to bring them out into the light to catalogue their faults and flaws, and each time Aziraphale sought him out, or asked his opinion on some weighty manner that was hanging on him, or even just smiled, those little wishings grew bigger and bigger, pressing in on him until he felt as if he was being crushed. 

“Princes do not fall in love with gardener boys,” he told himself one night, staring into the shard of looking glass he kept on a shelf, hoping it would help, hoping that hearing it out loud would make him believe it, would help him put all these ridiculous notions behind him. 

It didn't work.

But the Aziraphale of now had paused far too long at his joke-that-was-not-a-joke, and Crowley was beginning to suspect he would have to say some other pithy nonsense to break the tension before Aziraphale finally grinned. 

“Now would be the time, wouldn’t it?” he said with a laugh that did not reach his eyes. “I’ll leave you to your work then.”

He did not want to be left to his work, he wanted to sit with Aziraphale and hear about his troubles and have his own be listened to, but Aziraphale was already backing away from him, on his way to some other princely function, no doubt, and he just shrugged. 

“See you around,” He tongue burned to add the ‘your highness,’ burned to put that distance between them, but Aziraphale already looked so unhappy, he couldn’t bear to add one more iota. “Angel.” 

* * *

At some point, in between the butler screaming at the housekeeper, the housekeeper snapping at the chefs, the chefs bullying the maids, and the maids weeping with frustration into their pillows at night (someone must be on the bottom of the heap, after all, and who softer than a pillow?), the fated evening arrived. 

How I wish I could weave you a fantastical tale, tell you that as Crowley wandered through the gardens, furious with everything and nothing, a beautiful faerie appeared to him and magicked him a lovely gown in which he could attend the ball, that all were captivated by his beauty, that even Gabriel could find no fault with him, that he and Aziraphale danced until their shoes were worn through and the engagement was announced the next day. 

But, alas, there is no magic here, and this is not a fairy tale. 

I can tell you one thing, though you may not wish to hear it. (It depends on your tolerance for secondhand embarrassment, I suppose.) Aziraphale’s labeling of the entire thing as a disaster was giving himself too much credit. The evening could more accurately be described as “a debacle of epic proportions,” or, “the biggest catastrophe the palace had seen in years,” and no amount of wailing, bellowing or sobbing from the whole staff combined was enough to save it. How else to perfectly depict the moment the prince addressed the daughter of a baroness with the wrong honorific because he thought she was someone else entirely? Or how he ignored the overtures of the prince in the east in favor of sampling just a few more of the stuffed figs? I will not, in the interest of preserving the innocence of the reader, even deign to detail the dancing. 

Ah. 

The dancing. 

You must imagine it yourself. Even those in attendance, some with decades of training in decorum and manners behind them, found it difficult to hide their smiles behind their hands, to not catch the eyes of an acquaintance and raise their brows, affronted by the display. Instead of the flurry of renewed proposals Gabriel was hoping for, he was mortified that many _ withdrew, _leaving the ball early so as not to have their name associated with the gossip that would certainly make its way throughout the kingdom as soon as the morning had dawned. 

The worst part of the whole thing? 

Aziraphale hadn’t even meant to do it. 

It wasn’t like one of the tantrums of his youth, where he would act one way but desire another, no set of fine quills dropped down the well to stay home and teach a gardener's boy to read. No, he had meant to be standoffish, uninteresting, perhaps. Not this uncouth, coarse, clumsy _ thing _ that was sure to bring laughter to every breakfast table from here to the sea. 

(He thought he caught a glimpse once, when he chanced a look into the highest balcony, where the servants without duties were permitted to watch. He thought he saw that thicket of dark hair, the pale face, and he fumbled yet another step in this endless, ponderous waltz. When he looked again, the face was gone, and bitterness worse than the shame from any missed step rose into the back of his throat. Even Crowley had abandoned him.)

Crowley did have the opportunity to tell Aziraphale before the evening began that he had taken up an invitation from one of the maids to watch the entire proceedings from high in the servant’s gallery. He had wanted to wish the prince well, let Aziraphale he would be there, encouraging him from the balconies, that Aziraphale was a prince, he couldn't possibly _ do _ wrong. But there wasn't time, and now the maid beside him had given up her increasingly obvious displays of irritation that he wasn't paying attention to her at all in favor of making eyes and quiet laughter with one of the hostlers. Crowley didn't care about that either. Instead, his eyes were fixed on Aziraphale, tracing every twitch of irritation, every moment of fury with himself for making yet another incomprehensible breach of etiquette. 

He left when he saw despair set in. 

Crowley stalked across the grounds, slipping in between the bushes to hide from the glittering luminaries that gathered in the perfectly tailored tea gardens, and headed straight to the gate at the far end of the palace, where two guards, Lieutenant Shadwell and Colonel Tracy, were the sole defense against any who might wish to slip through the gate and cause those within any manner of mischief or ills. (That’s what they were supposed to be doing, at least. The ethanoic odor that emanated from the pair suggested that perhaps they were not as vigilant that evening as they ought to be.)

“Where’s Newt?” he asked them. "Isn't this supposed to be his shift?"

“Young Private Pulsifer?” the older guard, Lieutenant Shadwell, asked. “E’s in the barracks, pinin’ over that witch of his.” The way Shadwell pronounced ‘witch’ gave Crowley no doubt as to what he thought of her. 

“Thanks.”

“Ta, love!” Colonel Tracy called after him. “Good luck!” 

When he came to the barracks and peered in through the open window, Newt was scribbling down in his notebook, most likely more poorly conceived odes to the beauty and grace of Anathema, the palace occultist. 

“Newt,” Crowley called. The young man nearly threw his pencil straight across the room in alarm before regaining hold of himself. 

“Crowley? Is that you?” 

“No, it’s an aardvark,” he said, rolling his eyes. “C’mon, I need your help.” 

“What for?” 

Crowley began to detail his plan, and took interest in the particular shade of spoiled milk that Newt’s face adopted before he was even halfway done. 

“No,” Newt said, shaking his head furiously. “Absolutely not.” 

“Well, you don’t have much of a choice,” Crowley replied. 

“I don’t?” Crowley shook his head. 

“No, because if you don’t help me I’m going to march right up to Anathema the next time I see her and tell her about your notebook full of bad poetry about her.”

“You wouldn’t!” 

Crowley’s unfazed expression suggested he very much _ would._

* * *

So Newt found himself standing beneath the prince’s bedroom window beside two baskets of freshly cut flowers, watching for any movement, so tense that he almost screamed in fright when a length of rope dropped behind him. 

“Shut up,” Crowley hissed at him from above. “And tie the first basket.”

With a furtive glance from side to side, Newt took a precious thirty seconds to secure the rope, then gave a low whistle and the basket was hoisted up to the prince’s balcony. One down, one to go. Newt briefly allowed himself to believe that perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad at all, and wondered if Crowley would be amenable to making a second, much less dangerous trip to a different window of the castle. It should be carnations for _ her_, though, not - 

The rope fell again, the second basket tied, but as it drew away from the ground Newt heard the padding of soft footsteps. He whirled around, and as the basket slowly raised above his head, Michael rounded the corner, her face a perfect replication of all the ire a librarian could muster when a gaggle of children sprinted through the stacks. Newt hurtled the previous stages of alarm with an impressive leap that landed him squarely into heart-stopping terror because she was going to see any minute now she was going to raise her eyes and - 

“Private Pulsifer?” Michael asked, her voice slinking through the night. “What have we here? I was certain you were off this evening. Fancy seeing you here, now.”

It wasn’t a question, or an observation. Newt didn’t know _ what _it was, but he knew that if he didn’t think of something both he and Crowley were going to be spending the rest of the foreseeable future in the dungeons. 

Shaking, he drew his notebook from his pocket, made a circular gesture with it he hoped the Spymaster would draw her own conclusions from.

Michael pursed her lips. 

“Wrong side of the castle, Pulsifer,” she chided. “And I wouldn’t get any romantic notions about trellis climbing. Miss Device seems like the type with… precautions, against any unexpected visitors.” 

Newt nodded dumbly, and did not breathe until Michael’s footfalls echoed away into the night. 

“Everything okay down there?” Crowley whispered. 

Newt’s knees thought that was quite enough shock and surprise for one evening, and welcomed the embrace of the cool cobblestones. His head was less appreciative, and Crowley was obliged to throw him over his shoulder and carry him back to the barracks, cheerfully encouraging Newt’s groaning and moaning about his unrequited love. 

Crowley deposited him back in his bed, collected the best poem in his little notebook, and wrapped it around a bouquet of carnations which he left on the windowsill of Anathema’s office. Newt had done pretty well with the whole business (he thought the bit with Michael had been a very good bit of quick thinking), and Crowley wasn’t one to leave a debt unpaid, after all. 

As for the gardener, he returned to his little cottage, tended to the pricks he’d earned from the roses, and stared into his fragment of looking glass. 

“Princes do not fall in love with gardener boys,” he whispered.

* * *

Nights are strange, aren’t they? Sometimes they make you wish time could be distilled, crystallized, pressed within the pages of a favorite volume and preserved for all time, taken out and admired of an evening or a quiet afternoon. Others make you wish you could collapse in on yourself like a dying star and blink out of existence. 

Obviously, Aziraphale had experienced the latter. 

He bid a weary good night to his valet at his bedroom door. No, his services would not be required. No, his highness would not like a cup of tea. No, his highness would not care for something stronger. 

His highness would like to crawl between his sheets with a good set of books and not come out until doomsday, but he kept that part to himself. 

Something was different, however. Who had lit all these candles? Then the smell hit him. His room, which usually smelled like that nice cologne his valet insisted suited him well (and Aziraphale agreed), was overpowered by the heady smell of - something. Flowers. Roses? Had he spilled a bottle of perfume? But he didn’t own any rose water, he couldn’t! It would remind him too much of - 

“Crowley,” he breathed aloud, for it was all he could do as his mind caught up to what his eyes had known since the moment he stepped over the threshold. 

Roses. 

Covering his writing desk, his small breakfast table, the windowsill, his bed, there were roses. 

* * *

He didn’t catch up with the gardener until three days later. Three days of meticulously tending to the cut flowers the way Crowley had shown him _ years _ ago, and they still bloomed, in vases now instead of strewn about, with nary a lost petal to be had. Three days of politely bidding farewell to a long line of suitors and their entourages. Three days of quips on his dancing that were meant to be clever, and so he had to smile instead of cringe. Three days in close proximity with Gabriel’s displeasure, insinuating that he had _ meant _ to make a fool of himself, and if his brother _ ever _ tried such a thing again the damage would be tenfold. Three days without Crowley. 

At last, when his schedule was clear and he was doubly sure that no one should want him for some time, he slipped off into the gardens. 

“Crowley?” Crowley, in the midst of collecting saplings to plant elsewhere, paused in his digging and flicked his tongue against his lip when he heard the name, as if he could taste it on the wind. It was Aziraphale.

In a panic, he picked up his tools at once and began stalking through the trees. What was he supposed to say? What would _ Aziraphale _ say? What had he been _ thinking? _ No, he wasn’t ready for this conversation. He hadn’t heard him, hadn’t heard Aziraphale calling for him, couldn’t hear him ask about - 

“Crowley, wait!” Was the prince running? He turned around in time to see Aziraphale practically skid to a halt in front of him, resting his hands on his knees to try and catch his breath. 

“Are you alright?” Crowley asked, so that he didn’t have to ask what was wrong. 

“Yes - of course,” he said after he caught his breath. “I just - I needed to talk to you about something.” Crowley tapped the toes of his boots into the grass, and he longed to make some excuse (so sorry there's an emergency with the hydrangeas) but he could not refuse that earnest gaze and hopeful smile. 

“I’m listening.” 

“I know it was you,” Aziraphale admitted, with no pretense at all and a look on his face that Crowley had never seen before. He was unfamiliar with the way it made his chest feel, like the cage of his ribs was too small to contain his heart. 

“You know what was me?” Crowley said, tamping down the nervousness eager to creep into his voice. He could play this off, he was very smooth he could - 

But before he could dance away, or make a joke, or anything else that might distract, Aziraphale grabbed his wrist. He looked into Crowley’s eyes and then dropped his gaze, drew that hand, rough with callouses, dirt under the fingernails, that workman's hand, up to his lips and planted a gentle kiss on Crowley’s fingers. Crowley's heart, pressed against the confines of its prison, gave such a leap he wondered why it had not lodged in his throat. It _ felt _ as if it had, and when he opened his mouth, the only thing that came out was a sigh, soft and small and vulnerable. 

“Thank you,” the prince whispered, and Crowley could feel the breath against his skin.

“Aziraphale, I -” Crowley’s words bottlenecked in his mouth, there were too many of them that had been bursting to come alive for so long, and now that the time had come they shoved and jockeyed for position. He rejected all of them, and instead reached out, brushed the golden curls from Aziraphale’s face, and the way the prince’s eyes closed and a small smile crept across his face made Crowley want to do it all over again. 

A stick cracked somewhere behind them, and Aziraphale was sharply reminded of where they were, how anyone walking by could see them like this, what his brother might say _ how much danger he’d put Crowley in. _

He pushed him away. 

“I can’t, I’m sorry,” he began to babble. “It’s dangerous, I couldn’t, what if something happens to you and-”

“Run away with me,” said Crowley, before the prince could take one more step away from him. “We can go - it doesn’t matter where we go. I’ll take care of you.” 

It wasn’t a joke. Aziraphale wondered absently when it had changed, or if it ever had, and for a moment (only a moment you see), he allowed himself to think what it would be like. Living with Crowley, someplace new, someplace where they were not the gardener and the prince, but Crowley and Aziraphale. He imagined waking beside him in the morning, in a little house somewhere by the sea, Crowley tending to their vegetable garden, Aziraphale reading on a little bench, while Crowley grumbled and tormented their poor turnips. 

How long would it be before they were discovered? A year? Maybe two? 

“We can’t, Crowley,” he said, gently, and Crowley should understand, he should be brave enough to understand, to tell Aziraphale it was alright, he understood - 

“You mean you won’t,” Crowley sneered, turning cruel in his cowardice. “Won’t want to leave behind fresh scones every Tuesday and those fine linen sheets, after all.” He tried to twist his hands from the prince’s grasp, turn back toward his cottage, leave the tools and the saplings behind to be ruined by the first rain that poured from the heavens. 

But Aziraphale wouldn’t let him.

“No, Crowley,” he said, as if he were speaking to a terrified animal. “I didn’t say I won’t.” He turned away, and his voice became very small. “I didn’t say I don’t want to.” Crowley stopped struggling. 

“Then angel, what-”

“I mean we can’t! We can’t, there’s no place we can go where we won’t be discovered. I’m the _ prince_, Crowley! My life -” he sighed. “It doesn’t matter what I want. My life isn’t my own.”

Crowley brushed his thumbs over Aziraphale’s knuckles, a feather touch that made the prince shiver despite the sun and the warm afternoon haze. Crowley brought one of Aziraphale’s hands to his face, as the prince had just done, and brought his lips, cracked and chapped from the wind, to kiss the center of Aziraphale’s palm. The prince wanted to cry, he wanted to laugh for the joy of it, he wanted to drag Crowley back to the hiding places in the old palace ruins and see what those lips would feel like against his. 

But he could do none of those things. All he could do was allow his hand to be returned to him, see in the honey amber eyes a longing which matched his own, and stand there in the trees as Crowley, laden with his tools and saplings, made his way back to his duties. 

Then he returned to the palace. 

* * *

That night, Crowley stared into that small shard of looking glass again. 

“Princes do not -” and he paused, for it didn’t feel quite right, not after what had happened in the garden, not after what he saw in Aziraphale’s eyes, not after his hand still burned from where Azirapahle’s lips had kissed it. 

“Princes do not _ marry _ gardener boys,” he said instead. 

It did not make him feel any better. 

* * *

Three more years, and the tournament had been named.

You know the type I mean, surely? The one in which the prize is a royal highness' hand, where brave deeds of derring-do are almost thwarted by underhanded cheats, only to triumph at the very last minute?

Ah, good. I trust you’ll appreciate the rest of the story. 

Out of fashion with the old tale, however, was that the guardian of the royal highness in question had not called for the tournament. No, this was all Aziraphale’s idea, and, while receptive at first, the moment Gabriel heard Aziraphale propose the _ terms _of the tournament, things became… strained. 

"We are in the midst of a famine, Gabriel," Aziraphale did not shout, not exactly, but it was clear that only fifteen years of training in etiquette and manners prevented his voice from rising one iota above a pleasing volume. "This is the perfect type of tournament." It had been two seasons of little rain and poor harvests, and though the grain that had been stockpiled in times of plenty had kept the howling of starvation at bay, the stores would not survive one more poor season. As the winter retreated from the fields, everyone happily and loudly declared that _ this _ season would be the one to break the string of bad luck, but their wide smiles didn’t reach their eyes. 

Gabriel knew this, and knew what an excellent distraction such a tournament would be. The problem was not the tournament. After the disaster that was Aziraphale’s seventeenth birthday and the rumors that spread afterwards (not a proper prince at all, no wonder he rejects all the proposals that come his way, something _ wrong _ with him perhaps, they don’t want the kingdom to know), a tournament was the best method to secure _ any _ decent match for the young prince. 

The _ problem _was that the law said that it was the right of the truculent prince to name his own terms. Gabriel supposed this originally had been designed as a sort of fail-safe: the Royal Highness in question (their head too full of stories) was supposed to choose an archery or fencing tournament, certain that the ill-bred object of their affections would succeed in a field of nobilings who had nothing to do their whole lives but learn one art they would never employ on a real battlefield. This desired entrant would inevitably lose (or, even worse for the highness but better for the king, die) and then in a fit of grief the royal highness could be married off to whichever well-situated suitor had triumphed. But Aziraphale had no such person! He did not sit and sigh out of his window, or spend long hours bent over his writing desk, composing furtive letters to a far away lover. He didn’t try to sneak away from the palace under cover of darkness, only to be found and dragged back in disgrace. The prince hardly did anything at all! He spent most of free time galavanting about the palace grounds doing God knows what with no one!

“It just doesn’t seem like the type of… skill, that some of the better families would prefer.” 

“Perhaps we should call a fencing tournament then, if my own choice is to be so deftly refused?” Aziraphale suggested, with a knowing look. 

No, that would never do at all. The law decreed that the prince was permitted to enter his own tournament, (something about Atalanta and her golden apples) and Gabriel had no desire to watch Aziraphale publically humiliate all the entrants before the day was out and _ still _ be able to choose his own partner. 

“Fine. This - this ridiculous proposition of yours will be sent out to all the nobility and eligible suitors of the neighboring kingdoms. A tournament. A _ gardening _tournament,” Gabriel spat in disgust. Well, fine. If it got his defiant little brother settled in a suitable marriage and off his hands then - then it was all fine. 

“Ah, brother,” Aziraphale said, so quietly he might dismiss it if he wished. “Don’t forget. It’s not only the nobility eligible for entry. You must post a notice in the capital as well.” Was it possible to cringe someone out of the room? Gabriel was doing his best, and Aziraphale still stood there, sweet as anything, one eyebrow raised, as if surprised that the prince regent should fail to follow the law to the letter.

“Yes, Aziraphale,” he sighed, exasperated. “I’ll make sure the populace is informed.” Fat lot of good it would do them. There was one class of person that had the resources to devote three solid months to tending a garden inside the palace walls, and it was from this that Aziraphale would at last find a partner. 

Gabriel was sure of it. 

* * *

  


This surety was dashed to pieces the moment Michael appeared in his study the day after he made the proclamation in the Queen’s name and chided him for being “the most oblivious regent she’d ever had the pleasure to know,” and was so irritatingly _ smug _ about it. 

“What have I done this time?” 

“This tournament is, frankly, the most obvious ploy the little prince has ever devised,” she tutted. “You must know what your brother hopes to achieve with this ridiculous plan." 

“I pay you to find such things out for me,” Gabriel responded, evenly, though he couldn’t help but feel he had unknowingly made an egregious mis-step, judging by the vicious delight in Michael’s eyes. 

“Do you know," she began, sitting primly on top of Gabriel's mahogany desk, "of all the people in the palace, who knows your brother best?” 

“It’s me,”he replied at once. “Of course I know my brother best. Who else?” Michael actually laughed at this, and oh, that definitely wasn’t a good sign. 

“Your brother is in love,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly. “He’s in love with the gardener.”

“The who?” 

“Oh dear. The under-gardener? Came here as a child?” Gabriel shrugged. “The one all the nobles want to poach from you?” 

At last recognition! 

“Oh, you mean _ Crowley_,” Gabriel said, relieved. “There’s no love _ there_. Aziraphale is fond of him, of course, but that’s simply because they played together as children. He’s a _ gardener_, my brother certainly has more sense than that.” 

“What did you say he was?” Michael asked, with a merciless sparkle. 

“A gardener…” and at last, Gabriel understood. “A… gardener. And Aziraphale has called for a…” The missing piece fell into place. Aziraphale didn’t _ have _ to sit and sigh at his window, or compose long letters, or try and sneak out at night! _ All he had to do was go outside. _

“There you go,” Michael smiled and showed too many teeth. 

“Just _ how _well does this - this peasant know my brother?” Gabriel was counting the innumerable evenings and afternoons Aziraphale could not be located when he was needed, only to come traipsing out of the woods or found in the courtyards, with grass stains on his trousers, dirt on his hands - 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Michael said, shaking her head. “It’s not as bad as what I’m sure are the quite catastrophic imaginings running through that royal head of yours. Lord, as far as I know they’ve hardly even _ held hands._ But don’t you see? This boy, this no one, that’s who this whole thing is all about. The years of refusals, dredging up this ancient law. He wants the boy to win, he actually wants to _ marry _him!” Michael laughed again, and Gabriel was too incensed to ask her just what, about this whole mess of a situation, she thought was so funny. At least the solution seemed clear enough. 

“Fine, I’ll ban the entries to nobility only!”

“Overturn the law in the middle of a famine to favor the nobility? You’ll have a riot on your hands before afternoon tea. No, don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll handle everything.” She slid off his desk to leave, and there was a glint in her eyes that gave Gabriel pause, and he fidgeted for a moment. 

“Michael,” her hand froze above the handle of the door. “My brother… He’s…” Gabriel sighed. “Just, don’t - don’t do anything permanent. I don’t want Aziraphale any more rebellious than he already is. And I do enjoy being able to boast about the palace grounds.” Michael pursed her lips. 

“You’re getting soft,” she scolded. “But understood. I won’t harm a single hair on that common head. You have my word.” 

With a nod, Gabriel dismissed her. 

* * *

“Crowley! Crowley I’ve done it! He’s agreed to the tournament!” Aziraphale practically crashed into Crowley, who rose quickly from where he had been tending to the small vegetable garden in front of his cottage. He would have been surprised, but Aziraphale had been cooking up some scheme for weeks now, and refused to tell Crowley about any of it. This, he supposed, was the secret. A tournament. 

“Oh yeah? What’s the poison, angel? Fencing? Jousting? An archery bout?” Flippancy: the perfect mask for heartbreaking confusion. 

“Gardening.” 

There have been volumes written on how just one sentence, no, even just one word from a beloved pair of lips can be enough to stop a man cold, freeze him in his tracks. The frost that instantly seized up each and every one of Crowley’s joints put them all to shame. Aziraphale was watching him closely, looking for anything, any sign of joy, or anger, or disbelief, but a small ice age had begun within the confines of his garden, and a full thirty seconds went by before Crowley could muster up a response. 

“Wh-what?” 

(I didn’t say it was a _ good _ response.)

“It’s gardening. Whoever can produce the most impressive garden patch after three months time. That’s who I will have to choose.” He paused. “To marry.” Crowley made a nondescript noise, eyes locked with Aziraphale's. 

“Please say something.” Aziraphale closed his eyes, certain that Crowley's honey amber gaze would burn him from the inside out with one more moment of contact. Was he wrong? He was certain that - but maybe - no, maybe it was all - 

Suddenly he was being dragged into Crowley's small cottage, the sound of the door slamming behind them, calloused hands pulling his fingers away from his face and he was staring into the most anguished mask he had ever seen Crowley wear. 

"Angel," his voice quivered. It couldn't be this easy, there was no way - the stories were just stories, and princes didn't marry - they wouldn't! He had told himself that practically every single night since that afternoon three years ago! "Angel is this - is this a joke?" _ Please tell me it isn't a joke._

"Don't be ridiculous, Crowley!" Aziraphale replied, affronted. “How could you ever even think that I would show such disregard, such..." but as Aziraphale searched that face, replete with sorrow and fear and yet the audacity of optimism, he realized that Crowley didn't _ know. _ How could he, when Aziraphale had never told him, or allowed himself to be told, when he hoped that a thousand and one small acts would be enough to take the place of the words that caught in his throat and sat heavy on his tongue? 

"No," Aziraphale righted the ship. "It's not a joke, Crowley. It's - oh, please tell me I haven't gotten this all wrong?" That afternoon in the forest had been so long ago, it was possible that things had changed, that _ Crowley _had changed, that it was - 

Crowley reached out, brushed a trembling thumb against Aziraphale’s cheekbone, wiping away a tear the prince didn’t realize he had shed. 

“Angel.” The word was hushed, barely a whisper, barely a breath. Like a prayer. “No, angel. You haven’t gotten it wrong.” He shifted, cradled the prince’s head in his coarse hands, their lips scarcely a breath apart. “You must know. You must know that I l-” 

“Don’t say it!” Aziraphale interrupted, pulling back. “Please Crowley. Not until it’s safe, until we’re safe.”

“Yeah,” Crowley dropped his hands, stepped further into the shadows of his cottage, collapsing in on himself. “Yeah, I get it.” 

“No, I don’t think you do,” Aziraphale mumbled, desperate to be understood. “Crowley, if you said, if _ we _ said that, now, after waiting - I’d start -” A darker flush spread over his face. “I’d kiss you. And then I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to _ stop._” 

_ So kiss me, _ Crowley wanted to say. 

“Alright,” Crowley said instead. 

“I promise my dear, the moment you win, the moment Gabriel says your name alongside mine, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you every day for the rest of our lives.” The rest of their lives? That was something Crowley couldn’t have conceived of an hour ago, and here was Aziraphale promising him forever. 

He shoved his hands (traitorous things, that wanted to touch and caress and not let go) into his pockets, where they would behave themselves. 

“You sure I’ll win?” Crowley asked, broken smile back in place. Aziraphale let out a tense laugh. 

“You, alongside a few dozen nobles and merchants who wouldn’t know an annual from a perennial? Please, dear. I’ve been planning this since my seventeenth birthday. I wouldn’t muck it up now.” 

* * *

The terms that Aziraphale had set were, frankly, as ridiculous as they were brilliant. There was room for no more than five dozen entrants, and whoever could cultivate the most impressive patch of land within three months time would be named the winner, earning Aziraphale’s hand in marriage. The competition would be held within the palace grounds, and each little garden would be carefully caged and locked, with the only key given to the challenger. Guards posted at all hours would further ensure that everyone kept their eyes to their own garden, and (this was Aziraphale’s second favorite part), all the food grown for the tournament would be used to hold a magnificent feast. 

Crowley was the second participant in line to register (the only poor commoner to even bother) and the girl who took down his name and showed him to his patch of land winked at him before handing over the small golden key. 

“We’re all pulling for you,” she whispered. “Good luck.”

Crowley was heartened by the encouragement, not that he needed it. He had feared he might be up against one or two truly formidable opponents, but as the weeks passed, it became quite obvious that he was in a class by himself. While he practically whispered cabbages and cauliflower out of the earth, tied back pea plants and thinned the radishes, added petunias and basil and lavender to discourage pests, the patches around him were scrubby with half tended stems, leaves drooped, and aphids found feasts. 

“Please keep going,” he begged his plants, in between threatening scolds. “_ Please please please_.” 

There was a single garden which _ might _ have been in the same class as Crowley’s, if he were being very generous and also didn’t quite care for aesthetics. Though the planting was shoddy and haphazard, the plants were well luscious and well tended, and Crowley almost felt sorry for whoever was putting in such effort. 

But not quite. 

Crowley’s garden grew full and bountiful, as if in defiance of the land and the famine and fate, and as the day of judging approached, it was clear he would win. 

Until the two nights before. 

* * *

“It is done,” Michael whispered. “The plants will be ruined before the dawn, and the boy will lose.” Gabriel nodded. “It is well I intervened when I did. You should have seen his garden. As exquisite and beautiful as any I’ve had the pleasure to spoil.” Gabriel at least had the decency to shift uncomfortably in his chair at the sheer glee Michael displayed to have destroyed something she so admired. 

“Yes. Excellent… excellent work.” That was odd. He was usually much happier when his machinations began to fall into place. “Who is to be declared the winner instead?”

“Some lesser noble - the Maquis de Ostentor,” Michael replied. “Lesser known and the lesser talent, but only just.”

“What do we know about him?” Why did the name sound so familiar? 

“Not much I’m afraid, my people haven’t yet returned with their report, but what we do know is decent. Good land holdings in the east, strategically placed. Haven’t been to court in a few years, ancient bloodlines. I don’t know much about this one, must be the son or the nephew, he keeps to himself. Not much to look at (this was rather an understatement, as the mans red face and crooked teeth were so ghastly as to keep her from a third or even a second look), but all the paperwork is in order and I’m sure he’ll make a _ proper _ husband for your brother.” She shrugged. “And if not, nothing a small accident won’t cure.” 

Gabriel watched her leave, and sat, and thought. 

* * *

The next morning, Crowley walked down the rows of caged gardens, merrily swinging his pack of tools. He was even whistling, and was dreaming about the next afternoon, imagining Gabriel’s shocked face. Could he have an etching done? It was probably too late to commission an artist, he really should have thought about this sooner, and -

He gazed into his garden. 

When faced with some terrible shock, the brain has ways of shielding you from it, letting the realization happen in little drips and drams instead of burying you in an avalanche of horror. Crowley’s was no different. When he looked at what was left of the plants there, he wondered how he had come to the wrong garden. This _ couldn’t _ be his. Why, when he’d left them the night before he’d actually had the audacity to tell them that he was _ proud _ of them! There was no way these dead, brown, _ things _ were his plants! 

He counted the rows, and then counted them again. Why was he coming up with the same number each time? Well, the key wouldn’t work, and then he would _ know _ he had gotten it wrong. He just had to try, and then he would see. With shaking fingers, he drew the key from around his neck and inserted it in the lock. 

It turned, and Crowley thought he was going to be sick. 

He fell to his knees, pinched a bit of earth in his hands, smelled it, tasted it. Vinegar. Salt. The oldest weed killer in the book. But he would _ never _ have used it, not on something so precious! That meant - 

Someone sabotaged his plants. 

Someone _ knew_. 

* * *

Newt was lightly dozing in his bunk, dreaming about his brilliant and beautiful new wife (he adored the way Anathema wrinkled her nose at breakfast, the way the candlelight caught her glasses _ just so_) when he was roughly awakened by Crowley practically dragging him out of bed. 

“What happened last night,” Crowley growled as Newt hit the floor. “You were on duty.” 

“Nothing!” Newt squawked, trying to untangle himself from the bedclothes. Why did Crowley look so pale? “Well, Michael came ‘round and told me to take a break for a few but that -”

“Michael? _ Michael, _ the prince’s spymaster, came to relieve _ you _, Private Pulsifer, and you didn’t think that was odd? You didn’t think that was cause for concern?” Newt felt a cold tingling in his chest. He’d missed something, and it had been important. 

“What’s happened, Crowley? What did she do?”

But Crowley and his white, terrified face were already gone. 

Aziraphale. He had to find Aziraphale. They had only one chance and he would be damned if he came so _ close _ only to have it - 

Aziraphale was sitting alone at one of the tea tables in the courtyard, and the moment he caught sight of Crowley he was on his feet. 

“We have to go,” Crowley said, hushed and close, gripping his arm like a vise. “Aziraphale we have to run. It’s not a joke anymore. Michael’s done something - she poisoned my plants - they’re all - they’re all dead. The vegetables, the flowers -”

“Crowley, slow down!”

“I can’t, Aziraphale! They know! Michael and your brother, they know and they’re trying to stop you - stop us! They won’t let us - we have to run.”

Aziraphale blinked at him. 

“No,” he said, shaking his head so simply, as if it was nothing, as if that single word didn’t punch a hollow straight through Crowley’s heart. “No dear, we won’t be running.” 

So that was it then. Whoever had that other little garden, the one with the plants almost as big and lush as Crowley’s, whatever second son or snivelling merchant with half a head for green things would win Aziraphale’s hand and Crowley would just have to _ watch _ as - 

He threw down the prince’s arm and began to walk away, but not before Aziraphale caught him by the shoulder and spun him back around. 

“Dear, please listen to me -” 

“Your highness, I have the plants to tend to.” Aziraphale rolled his eyes at Crowley’s attempt to goad him and didn’t loosen his grip. 

“I didn’t begin well. Please. I’m not saying I don’t want to run.” The words from three years before echoed in his head. Crowley knew what came next, had been replaying it over and over again in his head for _years -_ _I’m saying we can’t, we can’t, we can’t - _

“I’m saying we don’t _ have _ to run.” 

Huh. 

That was different. 

Crowley’s heart, which had been floundering like a frightened bird in a too small cage, allowed itself a moment’s repose because hope, the treacherous hope that had been filling his head with ideas and his heart with feelings took one look at the calm determination in Aziraphale’s eyes and believed him. 

“Do you really think I’d trust my brother to play fair?” 

Oh. Crowley had forgotten. Had forgotten about the boy who threw his brother’s quills down the well, who rejected every offer from each bidder, who had acted as if he humiliated himself at the ball on purpose to get out of attending another. Aziraphale, _ his _ Aziraphale, was not the charming and gentle prince the world might assume. 

Aziraphale was a bit of a bastard.

“What did you do?” Crowley asked, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

“Oh my dear, shall I tell you?” There was that mischievous glint in his eye Crowley knew well. 

“Yes. Tell me everything.”

Later, sitting alone in his cottage, still trying to wipe the smile from his face, Crowley would wonder how he ever could have forgotten. 

* * *

  


The next day dawned. 

Crowley dressed in his finest suit, black and well tailored, and did not go about his gardening duties that day. He could not stomach tending to the plants, not today, and so instead he sat on the edge of his bed and watched the sunlight slowly move across the windows until it was time to go. 

Aziraphale did not suffer similar theatrics. He merrily allowed himself to be dressed and pressed by his valet, enjoyed a well balanced breakfast, bid his brother a hearty good morning, and took a short constitutional about the courtyard unseasonably early. Gabriel might have done well to look suspiciously on such behavior, but was too consumed with arranging the wedding festivities _ just so _ to notice his brother was not acting as if all the well laid plans he had been building toward were about to be ripped away. 

Noon arrived, and with it, the hum that had been buzzing around the castle firmly catapulted into a dull roar, as all the highnesses and your graces and wealthy merchant’s children and one gardener with a smile on his face that failed to hide the churning fear he felt inside all gathered near their little gardens to be judged, and the stands were filled with onlookers who felt they had been robbed of a _ proper _ contest, and grumbled about the loss of bloodsport.

Crowley could not bring himself to scowl at the poor, withered husks that lay at his feet. It hadn’t been their fault. They had tried, they had succeeded, they had been _ the best _, and they had been destroyed by someone who didn’t care about them at all, who saw them as nothing more than a political tool, a tumor to be pruned and keep the prince to heel. 

Ah yes. The prince. 

Crowley turned toward the dias where the prince regent and his younger brother sat upon their thrones, where Aziraphale had the _ audacity _ to wink at him and Crowley had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. Gabriel truly knew nothing about his brother, and Crowley was ashamed for his moment of doubt, of weakness the day before. He should have trusted Aziraphale would have plans on top of plans. He was the youngest son of the queen, after all. Those classes he always tried to run away from hadn’t all been on dancing and penmanship. (A good thing too, as Aziraphale had no talent for either.) He had learned strategy, leadership. Michael walked down the row of gardens, and would not look Crowley in the eye. Subterfuge. 

He took comfort in the shifting eyes of the other entrants, but mourned the sad, stunted plants they had to offer. Did these noble brats, with their fine hands and fine nails, who never in their lives knelt down into the dirt and felt the soil beneath their fingers, did they truly believe that they would win a _ gardening _ tournament? 

The final reports were turned in to the prince regent, who looked them over and sighed with content before he stood to address the crowd. 

“It is wonderful to see so many fine gardens during this trying time for our kingdom,” he began. “It is my hope that this is but the beginning of a fruitful season and bountiful harvest, where we may once again celebrate all that our beautiful land has given back to us.” It was a passable speech, fitting for the prince regent. 

“And now we come to the crux. For as was decreed, whosoever could grow the most bountiful garden within three months time would be declared the winner, and earn as their prize the prince, my brother, as good a husband as can be found throughout the kingdom.” Crowley was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, struggling in vain to contain his excitement. 

“The winner is… The Marquis de Ostentor!” Trumpets sounded and Gabriel’s smile widened as he searched the crowd for he with the noble name and bearing to come to the dias, to claim his prize. But none moved from the lines of competitors, and there were a few confused murmurs.

Then Aziraphale stood up and walked towards his brother. 

“I’m happy to hear you say so, your highness.” 

* * *

He told Crowley the whole business yesterday in the courtyard. The hideous disguise (a red face and false teeth with an unflattering tunic and a wide-brimmed hat), tending to his flowers and vegetables each and every day, using every little trick Crowley had absently taught him in the decade they had been friends, the select and trusted members of the palace staff who helped him carry out the ruse. 

“I would have asked you for help if I really needed it, dear, but I wouldn't have said anything at all of my brother had played fair. I was - I was worried that if I told you what I was doing one of us would make a mistake, be too obvious. I'm sorry I hid it from you! Now it seems foolish. Can you forgive me?” Crowley sat beside him and longed to hold his hand and tried to contain the love and laughter bubbling up within him. There was nothing to forgive! Aziraphale had done it! 

“I toyed a bit with not using the Ostentor name, but Gabriel didn’t know him, and didn’t even know he was dead! So I thought, why not? He’ll find comfort in the familiarity of the name, at least, and it’s not like my great uncle had anyone else to leave the title to when he died. Michael tried to go deeper, though, she sent one of her spies to check up on the place, but I took care of that with a lovely little chest of gold for her agent. He’ll return with the report that the Marquis has been dead for _ years _ three days after the conclusion of the tournament, but by then, it will be too late.” 

* * *

Back on the dais, for the span of three breaths, it was clear that Gabriel did not understand. And that was alright. There were only two there that did (although the majority of the palace staff no doubt suspected _ something_.) When he at last understood, his face went white, then red, and Crowley thought he looked just like the beets he unearthed every fall. He waited for what he assumed would be inevitable, the screaming, the stamping of feet, the attempt to have the whole thing declared a ruse, to have - 

But Gabriel didn’t do any of those things. 

Gabriel laughed. 

Had the prince regent gone mad? Aziraphale looked just as confused as Crowley, and there was a touch of fear there that sent Crowley sprinting towards the princes before even he knew what he was doing, heedless of who saw, the excuses he’d been concocting for _ years _ filling his head like an angry swarm of bees (I was doing my duty, I was protecting the prince, there’s nothing untoward, there’s nothing to blame him for) but before Crowley could attempt a foolish charge at the palace guard Gabriel held up his hand for silence. 

“It seems my brother has entered the competition under an assumed title. He has won, and by the right of this… combat, can choose whoever he should like to stand by his side.” Gabriel shook his head and stepped back. 

“I’m tired, brother,” he said to Aziraphale, and it was meant for the younger prince’s ears alone. “I’m tired of tears and balls and proposals and nasty meetings in my study, and whatever I try and do to stop this I’m sure you’ll just squirm your way out of anyway. Go ahead.” 

Aziraphale blinked at him. 

“No tricks? No Michael waiting for him around a darkened corridor at night?” 

“No,” Gabriel said, shaking his head. “With my luck you two would switch places and Michael would be in for the fight of her life, I’ve seen you with a sword. I promise, I’m done.”

“No more speeches about the good of the kingdom?”

“We’re in the middle of a famine and your gardener somehow impressed _ Michael _with what he managed to grow in three months. If he can improve our crop yields and prevent the leanest winter in memory I’ll even join you two for dinner.” 

Aziraphale could find nothing more to say to his elder brother, nothing that was not something resembling a “thank you,” and the words sat to strange on his tongue to yet be voiced. There would be time, later perhaps, when the fervor and the questions died down, where he might even sit with his brother and share a drink with him, as equals. 

But now, there were more pressing matters. 

Crowley was looking up at him from behind a fence of well armed guards, and Aziraphale reached down between them to grasp his hand, pull him up with that surprising strength that he never showed, placed this orphaned no one, this gardener’s boy plucked from poverty because he had a keen eye for foliage, beside a prince. There was cheering, although the volume from the nobility was markedly lower than the rest. 

Crowley’s didn’t hear any of it. 

He was too concerned with the way the sun caught Aziraphale’s hair, with thinking about a day ten years ago, when a gardener’s boy found a prince crying in his azaleas. 

He concentrated on Aziraphale’s hand in his. 

* * *

That evening, after the feasting and the crowds and the endless string of congratulations (Anathema gushed, Newt gripped their hands and smiled awkwardly, Colonel Tracy thanked them for helping her win a bet against Lieutenant Shadwell, and Shadwell harumphed and didn’t say anything else), Crowley found himself quite at a loss, left alone in the library while Aziraphale bid farewell to a dignitary Crowley did not know, nor care too.

How was this night to end? Was he supposed to walk back to his cottage? Tend to the gardens tomorrow before his wedding? 

That’s the thing about the old stories, isn’t it? They never tell you what happens in between. They never explain how the penniless daughter of a shepherd feels once she’s won the heart of the princess (does she miss the winds, the open fields, the stupid loyalty of the sheep), never delve into how small and awkward that third son (helpless but for a clever cat) felt inside the hallowed halls of a palace, where even the closets could dwarf the one room hovel he grew up in. How does one transition, from outside to in? 

“Crowley?” 

The gardener looked up, and saw Aziraphale framed in the doorway. _ Oh. _

_ Maybe that’s how._

“Are you alright?” 

“‘M fine, angel,” because he was, because while there were still shadowy doubts gnawing at the corners of his mind, they fled in light of the love in Aziraphale’s soft smile. “Just - just been a long day.” _ A long decade _. 

“Would you like to turn in for the night?” There was the crux of the whole thing, wasn’t it?

“Where?” He tried a glib smile, to turn it into a joke, but Aziraphale wasn’t an idiot.

“Oh, _ Crowley, _ ” and Crowley hated the tone, hated that he suddenly didn’t _ know _ where he belonged. “Come with me.” 

Aziraphale took his hand (Crowley was certain he would never lose the thrill he felt when their fingers intertwined) and led him through the palace.

“This isn’t the way to the guest wing,” Crowley observed, as they turned a corner to the royal chambers, and Crowley felt warm all over. 

“Of course not,” Aziraphale said, simply. Crowley raised an eyebrow. 

“Before the wedding night, angel?” 

All at once Aziraphale rounded on him, crowded him against the wall. Crowley’s heart leapt into his throat as he braced himself against Aziraphale’s shoulders. 

“I have been waiting too long to be this close to you,” the prince murmured. “You’re my _ fiance _. Who is going to dare say anything about where you choose to sleep?” 

Crowley, drunk on their proximity and the growl in Aziraphale’s voice, gave him a helpless sort of shrug. 

“There you are,” Aziraphale said, springing back. “Now, I believe you’ve been here before, but allow me to properly invite you inside?” 

He opened the door to his personal apartments, and they were as comfortable and plush as Crowley remembered. The valet was nowhere to be seen (he assumed Aziraphale had taken care of _ that _) and Aziraphale led them through the sitting room to his bedchamber, where a single candle burned on the opulent bedside table. 

But there was something else there beside it, and Crowley recognized it at one. 

It was a bundle of dried roses, wrapped in a frayed and dirty handkerchief.

He turned to face Aziraphale, caught up those hands in his, heart beating so fast he was certain it might burst. 

“I love you,” he said it all in a rush, barely spaces between the words, just in case, in case… 

“Crowley -” There was admonishment there, and he couldn’t stand it. 

“No, Aziraphale!” He knew it, he knew he’d gone too far but he didn’t _ care _. “I won’t wait any longer, I can’t -”

“Crowley!”

“What?”

“Darling, say it again. Slower, this time”

“Oh,” and he blushed under the prince’s scrutiny. “Ah - I love you.”

“Crowley, I love you.” He brought Crowley’s right hand to his lips and kissed it. “I’ve loved you for so long,” Then the left. “But it’s alright now, dear. We’re finally safe, we can finally - 

Crowley couldn’t wait any longer, and kissed him. 

Aziraphale’s lips were as gentle and yielding as Crowley had fantasized they might be, and they opened under his with little coaxing. They were perfect, the perfect fit, and when he slid his tongue across the prince’s bottom lip Aziraphale made a noise in the back of his throat that drove Crowley to delve further, see what other lovely sounds he could tease out of that royal mouth. 

Aziraphale slid his hands into Crowley’s dark curls, and suddenly he was the one who could not prevent a hitched moan from his own lips, wanted more, needed Aziraphale closer, needed to lay him down on that bed that was probably outrageously soft and catalogue every inch of him with a caress, with a kiss. 

_ I love you I love you I love you _

Aziraphale drew back, brushed his nose against Crowley’s. 

“Dearest…” 

“What’s wrong?” Had he overstepped, even now? 

“It’s just -” Aziraphale puffed and pouted a bit. “It’s still so bright in here, don’t you think? And it might be much lovelier by moonlight.” 

Crowley rolled his eyes, and happily left his side to pull back the curtains and extinguish the candle flame. The silver light of the moon rushed to draped herself across the room, unchallenged and sublime. 

As for what happened after the candle went out? Ah, well. 

I’ll tell you when you’re older. 

* * *

The wedding was not the lavish affair that Gabriel had so meticulously planned. 

The guest list experienced a thorough clipping, although there was more jocular ribbing than any real bitterness of feeling. All the noble patriarchs and matriarchs were eager to tell the prince regent wild tales of their truant children and their many dalliances with the staff, and Gabriel would happily play the part of the duped guardian if it meant preserving the delicate sensibilities of the nobility. The merchants and their children, commoners themselves, thought it was all rather romantic, the palace staff were humming in their duties and the folks in the capital had thrown quite the ah… “rager” of a party the night of the judging and half the city was still sleeping it off three days later. 

The wedding was also moved from the palace chapel to the courtyard, because Aziraphale insisted that nothing would suit but that the pair were married in a close and quiet ceremony in the rose arbour, which Crowley had, until the previous morning, been meticulously tending to, growling at the roses, burying his fear and hope into the threats and scowls and scornful remarks he tormented them with. 

And yet, when he saw Aziraphale standing in his wedding suit, surrounded by the most beautiful roses he had ever even dreamed of cultivating, he wanted to thank them instead. 

There was no dancing at the wedding feast, not from the grooms, at least. But if someone were to peek in to the prince’s window very late that night, one might have seen the prince, with his head cradled in the crook of the shoulder of someone who very recently had given up his title of gardener for consort. The prince and his new husband swayed side to side, arms wrapped around each other, revolving slowly about the room to a tune only they could hear, before again bringing their lips together, blushing, and returning to the bed, whose sheets were already considerably rumpled. 

This is what one might have seen.

In the summer the rains returned, and the harvest was plentiful. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Check out my other GO fics if you like (there's a healthy sampling of various AUs) and my Tumblr is [@soft-october-night](https://soft-october-night.tumblr.com/) if you'd like come by and say hello!


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